Symphony
Production Notes
This is a song written by Charles Wagner a while back. We basically took his song's drums and reproduced them and started making the song anew.
For mics and preamps, I used a cheap 100 dollar dynamic Seinhesser e228 (or something like that, its their basic model) and a mackie preamp built in to their mixers (I've since upgraded to a rode nt2a and motu 828mkii preamps). I will say that the vocals really don't sound too much like how they started as I was a newbie at autotune at the time and really flattened out the vocals pitches a lot on that one. I've since switched to the melodyne plugin and some better vocal production techniques (e.g., used in "Tread" which is also posted on this blog). (plug, melodyne rocks!). Actually sang the backup vocals and flattened out their pitches completely using Autotune.
Charles played the guitar parts, but we panned them left and right, with a small delay to give a nice stereo effect. Strings were picked and composed by me using EastWest Symphony Gold plugin (I like that one a lot), and I played the bass. The drums are just Cubase's built in LM4 module (no effects added as I recall). My favorite part of the whole thing is the pinging electric guitar and piano part that comes in at the ad naseum chorus repitition at the end (very ColdPlayesque in my ears anyway). This was my first real production song (not counting Little Umbrella) and I've ended up liking it (other than some of the vocal complaints I have up there).
Lyrics
If I said I was a fool for you, would you laugh at me?
excuse this intuition; blinded by beauty
So I watch these pieces as they dance together
a new fit until they last forever
It's a symphony
if I sung dissonance, would you await resolve?
walking off into the distance, we'll always be a part
as these sirens sing we gravitate to them
a lucid meaning to a complex system
It's a symphony